What You Can Complain About

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What you can make a complaint about

The LSRA receives and investigates complaints about legal practitioners – solicitors and barristers.

We handle three types of complaints about:

  • Inadequate legal services: when the client considers the legal service was not of a standard that someone would reasonably expect.
  • Excessive costs: when the client considers the costs sought for the legal service is excessive.
  • Misconduct: a range of conduct which includes fraud, dishonesty, criminal activity and other acts.

You can watch a video on making a complaint to the LSRA below.

Background image from the Making a complaint video

Title: Making a complaint to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority

The Legal Services Regulatory Authority, or LSRA, is an independent body that protects consumers by receiving and investigating complaints about solicitors and barristers.

You can make a complaint to us if you have an issue relating to one of our three categories; Quality, Overcharging or Misconduct.

1. Quality: You can complain to us if you are dissatisfied with the quality of legal services you received.

2. Overcharging: You can complain to us if you feel that you were charged too much for the legal services provided.

3. Misconduct: You can complain to us if you are concerned about the conduct or behaviour of a solicitor or barrister; for example, you think they might have been dishonest.

Our complaints service is free and impartial, which means we do not take sides.

As a public regulatory body, we cannot provide you with legal advice or represent you.

If your complaint relates to our first two categories, quality or overcharging, we first try to resolve your complaint in an informal way. We do this by communicating with you and the solicitor or barrister. Our goal is to help you come to an agreement.

If you cannot reach an agreement, or your complaint relates to our third category, misconduct, we will carry out an impartial investigation.

When we carry out an investigation, our goal is to get to the facts of the issue and to make a decision on your complaint.

If we uphold your complaint, we can direct a solicitor or barrister to take certain actions to put things right between you.

Before you make a complaint with us, check to see it is about something we can investigate. Then fill in the complaint form on our website and we will contact you with the next steps.

Go to LSRA.ie for more information.

Time limits for complaints:

  • There is generally a three year time limit on complaints about inadequate legal services and excessive costs
  • There is no time limit on complaints about misconduct
  • We cannot investigate a complaint that has already been determined by a professional body such as the Law Society of Ireland or the Bar of Ireland.

Who can make a complaint

Any client of a solicitor or barrister can make a complaint about inadequate legal services and / or excessive costs.

Anyone can make a complaint about misconduct by a solicitor or barrister; you do not need to be a client of the solicitor or barrister.

Making a complaint on behalf of another person

You can also make a complaint on behalf of another person, such as a family member, friend or vulnerable person.

They will need to sign a consent form. Please see our consent policy for further information.

Consent Policy (PDF)

Making a complaint

Complaints to the LSRA must be made in writing, the easiest way to make a complaint is by using our Complaint Form. When you are ready to start filling in the Complaint Form, please go to the ‘How to Make a Complaint page.

If we can’t help

People often contact us about issues that we cannot help with. Other organisations may provide useful information for you as a consumer of legal services or be able to advise you on how to take your complaint forward.  Find out more about other organisations which may be able to advise you on how to take your complaint forward.

Complaints Information Guide

Please read our Complaints Information Guide ‘How to make a complaint about a barrister or solicitor’ for full details of what you can complain about, how to make a complaint and how we will handle your complaint.

This page was last updated on Wednesday, 11th December 2024